A Mala Fide Attempt to Control Independent Digital Media The new rules framed unfairly lump news sites with OTT platforms and social media and must be rolled back. Representative image of two girls operating their smartphones. Photo: Vural Cam/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 Tech01/Mar/2021 In recent times India has seen serious erosion in key institutions which form the scaffolding of her constitutional democracy. Indians have lived through acute anxiety over the deterioration in the functioning of parliament and the judiciary. To this one can now add the media, which is regarded as the fourth pillar of our democracy. The new Information Technology rules notified by the government give unprecedented powers to the executive to summarily take down content from digital news media platforms on vague grounds, and without so much as giving the publisher a hearing. And this is being done in the name of regulating all internet-based media platforms across the board â including news, entertainment, OTT Apps like Netflix, Hotstar and big social platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc.